Update on my previous water profile experiment

(That's water to the rest of us!) Beer is about 95% water, so if you want to discuss water treatment, filtering etc this is the place to do it!
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BenB

Update on my previous water profile experiment

Post by BenB » Sun May 08, 2016 2:00 pm

As some may recall earlier this year I brewed the same beer on two sequential Mondays with the only significant difference being the water profile. One had a fairly low salts content profile (US style), the other higher levels of salts but the same chloride:sulphate ratio (more UK)

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=74863&p=780568&hili ... es#p780568

What was interesting is that in blind tasting after a month conditioning in the bottle no discernible difference was found. Although my father and I thought we could tell which was the "different" beer in the triangle test we both failed miserably, ironically us both preferring the one we thought was different which transpired (on unblinding) to be one of the brews there were two bottles of...

Now what is interesting is I thought there the story would end. Trouble is it hasn't. Since then the bottles have all been stored in the same fermentation chamber at a constant temperature. And whilst the high salt one is just getting better and better the low salt beer has stayed pretty much the same as it was when I tasted it at a month. It's a nice beer, just relatively one dimensional in flavour. The high salt one has developed a more rounded character. It's still bitter but not quite as harsh, it's difficult to describe. But it's definitely different and I know which one I go for first from the stack of bottles.

So on that basis I'm veering towards higher salt beers. Certainly I've changed my water profile for tomorrow's brew. It's a "Southern English Brown Ale" from the Greg Hughes book. I was going for an amber malty profile from Bru'N water which was fairly watery- calcium around 50. Now I'm going for a profile more fitting to the South of England, Calcium is up near 150, sulfate:chloride ratio I've only gone for 1.2 with the sulfate up around 160. Should be good!

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Re: Update on my previous water profile experiment

Post by MTW » Sun May 08, 2016 2:32 pm

Interesting work - well done!

Just out of interest, did you measure and achieve the same mash pH in both mashes?
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BenB

Re: Update on my previous water profile experiment

Post by BenB » Sun May 08, 2016 3:00 pm

I measured it- 5.4 with the low salts version and 5.5 with the higher salts version (both measured at room temperature with a Voltcraft ATC pH meter). The difference between the two is due to the fact that the water I was using was a mixture of bottled Ashbeck and tap water and I mis-counted when making up the second batch and only initially added 3* 5L bottles of Ashbeck (instead of the 4 required). I realised just after the sparge and so added it pre-boil so the mash chemistry was a bit different but the end result in the bottle would have been as planned.

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orlando
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Re: Update on my previous water profile experiment

Post by orlando » Mon May 09, 2016 3:49 pm

BenB wrote:I measured it- 5.4 with the low salts version and 5.5 with the higher salts version (both measured at room temperature with a Voltcraft ATC pH meter). The difference between the two is due to the fact that the water I was using was a mixture of bottled Ashbeck and tap water and I mis-counted when making up the second batch and only initially added 3* 5L bottles of Ashbeck (instead of the 4 required). I realised just after the sparge and so added it pre-boil so the mash chemistry was a bit different but the end result in the bottle would have been as planned.
What was the alkalinity level of the Ashbeck/tap water, do you know? You also mentioned the Southern Brown was a 1:2 with sulphate at 160, making the chloride 320, correct?
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Dennis King
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Re: Update on my previous water profile experiment

Post by Dennis King » Mon May 09, 2016 4:34 pm

Interesting reading, I've been thinking of doing a similar experiment.

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